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The  Springfield  Tests 


1846--19O5-6 

A       STUDY       IN        THE 

Three  R's 


J 


The  Springfield  Tests 

1846-1905-6 


A  STUDY  IN 

The  Three   R's 

..    ..    BY    ..    .. 

JOHN  LAWRENCE  R1LEY 

Principal  Central  Street  Grammar  School 

Springfield,  Massachusetts 


Printed  for 
MILES  C.  HOLDEN,  Secretary 

The     Holden     Patent    Book     Cover     Company 

SPRINGFIELD.  MASS. 


o 


To  THE  PUBLIC  : 

REALIZING  THE  DEEP  PUBLIC  INTEREST  IN  THE 
RECENT  CHANGES  IN  THE  METHODS  AND  COURSES 
OF  PUBLIC  SCHOOL  EDUCATION,  AND  FEELING  THE 
NEED  OF  INTELLIGENTLY  FORMED  OPINIONS  REGARDING 

SUCH  MATTERS,  THE  PUBLISHERS  PRESENT  THIS  BOOK- 
LET, AT  A  PRICE  WHICH  ONLY  PARTIALLY  COVERS 
THE  COST,  AS  A  CONTRIBUTION  TO  THE  CAUSE  OF 
EDUCATION. 

MILES  C.  HOLDEN 
June,  1908. 

The  H olden  Patent  Book  Cover  Company, 
Springfield,  Mass. 


SECOND  EDITION 
OCTOBER,   1910 

Since  the  publication  of  the  first  edition  Mr.  Riley  has  been  elected  Super- 
intendent of  Schools  for  Holyoke,  Mass. 


Copyright  1908  by  The  Holden  Patent  Book  Cover  Company 


Contents 

PAGE 

Preface 4 

Table,  Results  of  Comparative  Tests 6 

Spelling  and  Arithmetic 7 

Locational  Geography 20 

Penmanship .      .29 

Careers  of  Pupils  of  1846 38 

Conditions  in  the  Old  Schools   .  43 


408943 


Preface 

ON  November  12,  1905,  the  Springfield  Republican  printed  an 
article  on  the  "  Schools  of  Sixty  Years  Ago,"  contributed  by 
the  writer.  It  gave  a  comparison  of  the  results  of  exami- 
nations in  spelling  and  arithmetic  of  1846  and  1905  as  well  as  the 
words  and  questions  of  the  old  tests.  The  article  was  copied  by  the 
New  York  School  Journal  of  December  second  and  later  by  most  of 
the  educational  papers  of  the  country.  In  three  or  four  months 
the  tests  had  been  tried  in  hundreds  of  places  and  many  of  the 
dailies  in  our  leading  cities  had  commented  editorially  or  otherwise ; 
while  innumerable  letters  had  been  received  from  school  committees, 
superintendents  and  principals. 

These  indications  of  widespread  interest  have  induced  the  writer 
to  make  use  of  the  remaining  tests, — geography  and  penmanship, — 
for  comparison  with  present  day  work,  to  analyze  more  thoroughly 
the  work  of  the  pupils  of  1846,  and  to  put  the  whole  into  a  more 
permanent  form. 

In  publishing  this  matter,  the  only  desire  is  to  place  within 
reach  of  everybody  interested,  some  definite  and  tangible  evidence 
bearing  upon  that  much  discussed  subject, — the  three  R's.  The 
changes  made  in  the  curricula  of  the  public  schools  during  the  past 
half  century  have  led  many  people  to  assume  that  the  branches  so 
strongly  emphasized  in  earlier  times,  are  being  neglected  today, 
and  that  the  work  in  the  so-called  fundamental  studies  was  better 
years  ago  than  it  is  now.  As  Mr.  George  H.  Martin,  Secretary  of 
the  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Education,  writes  in  his  report 
of  1905-6:  "Many  people  imagine  a  golden  age  somewhere  in  the 
past  when  everybody  habitually  spelled  correctly."  He  might 
have  added, — when  everybody  ciphered  accurately  and  read  fluently. 
This  feeling, — it  can  hardly  be  called  an  opinion, — has,  from  time 
to  time,  become  so  strong  in  some  communities  and  has  been  so 
difficult  to  dissipate  because  of  lack  of  substantial  evidence,  that  it 
has  often  caused  the  withholding  from  progressive  school  committees 
and  superintendents  of  that  support  which  is  so  essential  to  success 
in  any  public  undertaking.  For  many  years  the  argument  of  the 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS  5 

"Three  R's"  has  been  a  weapon  of  great  power  in  the  hands  of  all 
kinds  of  men,  used  often  but  not  always  from  honest  motives  and 
too  frequently  doing  incalculable  injury  to  the  cause  of  education. 
The  introduction  of  new  subjects,  some  of  which  have  been  called 
"fads,"  into  the  courses  of  study,  have  made  it  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  the  results  in  the  common  branches  could  not  be  as  good 
today  as  they  were  formerly.  Few  people,  except  educators,  have 
considered  the  possibility  of  improving  the  work  in  any  study  by 
decreasing  the  time  and  increasing  the  concentration  of  the  child 
and  the  skill  of  the  teacher.  Few  people  have  endeavored  seriously 
to  find  out  to  what  extent  such  subjects  as  manual  training  and 
drawing,  through  correlation,  "clinch"  facts  in  arithmetic, — or 
how  far  spelling  is  improved  by  broadening  the  child's  knowledge 
through  a  greater  variety  of  reading  matter  or  through  such  a 
branch  as  nature  study.  Few  take  the  trouble  to  actually  ascertain 
the  facts  regarding  the  amount  of  hard  drill  given  today  in  the 
three  R's  or  to  refresh  their  memories  by  re-examining  their  child- 
hood compositions  and  spelling  papers. 

It  is  the  privilege  of  the  citizen  to  criticise;  it  is  no  less  his 
duty  to  examine  evidence  and  arrive  at  opinions  rationally  and 
judicially.  An  opinion  based  upon  an  isolated  instance  or  upon  a 
false  assumption  may  check  progress  in  any  line  if  held  by  the 
masses  of  the  people  or  by  a  man  in  authority.  If  the  results  of  the 
tests  and  investigations  contained  in  these  pages  aid  in  the  forma- 
tion of  intelligent  opinions,  the  writer  will  feel  that  the  hours  spent 
in  their  preparation  have  been  spent  in  service  to  that  most  demo- 
cratic institution  in  America, — that  institution,  which,  when  kept 
abreast  of  the  times,  takes  the  leading  place  among  the  agencies 
which  make  for  peace  and  civilization, — the  Public  School. 

JOHN  L.  RILEY. 


Results  of  Tests 

1846         1905-6 
SPELLING — twenty  words : 

Number  of  pupils  who  took  tests   ...  85  245 

Average  percentage  of  words  correct   .      .  40 . 6  51.2 

ARITHMETIC — eight  examples : 

Number  of  pupils  who  took  tests    ...  79  245 

Average  percentage  of  answers  correct      .  29 .4  65  . 5 

GEOGRAPHY — twelve  questions : 

Number  pupils  who  took  tests        ...  81  219 

Average  percentage  of  answers  correct      .  40.3  53.4 


Spelling  and  Arithmetic 

CAN  school  children  of  today  spell  as  well  as  the  children  of 
half  a  century  ago?  Is  arithmetic  taught  as  effectively  now 
as  it  was  when  our  fathers  and  grandfathers  were  boys? 
Are  we  neglecting  the  three  R's?  These  questions  disturb  teachers, 
agitate  school  boards  and  sometimes  produce  violent  controversies. 
The  general  opinion  seems  to  be  that  in  the  "common  branches" 
the  modern  school  is  inferior  to  the  school  of  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago. 
There  is  only  one  way  of  settling  in  the  public  mind  these  ever- 
recurring  questions  and  that  is  by  giving  examinations  to  pupils 
of  today  which  were  given  in  the  schools  of  half  a  century  ago,  and 
coolly  comparing  results.  Such  test  questions,  however,  with  the 
answers,  have  seldom  been  preserved,  and,  in  the  absence  of  such 
material,  critics  of  the  modern  schools  have  made  claims  for  the 
schools  of  their  boyhood  which,  for  want  of  satisfactory  evidence, 
have  been  difficult  to  refute.  A  few  such  papers,  however,  do  exist, 
and  in  the  interest  of  education,  they  should  be  preserved  and 
consulted  frequently  in  order  that  we  may  retain  the  proper 
perspective  of  our  school  days. 

Fifteen  or  sixteen  years  ago  in  the  attic  of  the  high  school 
building  in  Springfield,  Massachusetts,  several  old  sets  of  examina- 
tion papers  were  found  that  had  been  written  in  the  fall  of  1846. 
These  papers  consisted  of  printed  questions  in  geography  and 
arithmetic,  with  answers  written  on  the  printed  sheets,  and  written 
tests  in  spelling  and  penmanship.  Mr.  Parish,  the  second  principal 
of  the  Springfield  high  school  gave  these  examinations  to  his  pupils, 
and  to  him  and  to  Dr.  Thomas  M.  Balliet,  who  as  superintendent  of 
schools  preserved  them  in  his  safe,  is  due  'the  fact  that  today  we 
may  look  upon  the  actual  work  of  our  worthy  parents. 

Two  of  these  tests,  spelling  and  arithmetic,  were  given  to  about 
two  hundred  and  fifty  ninth  grade  pupils  of  our  local  schools  in 
March,  1905,  and  the  results  were  carefully  compared  with  the 
results  of  the  tests  of  1846.  The  questions  in  arithmetic  were 
reprinted  exactly  as  they  appeared  in  the  original  papers,  and  both 
tests  were  given  under  the  direction  of  one  principal.  The  children 


8 


T  H  E        S  P  R  txN  G"F  IELD        TESTS 


of  five  schools  took  part  in  the  examination.  The  papers  were  sent 
to  the  directing  principal  and  he  examined  and  marked  according 
to  a  uniform  standard,  the  papers  of  the  new  and  the  old  tests. 
Following  are  the  results: — 

1846 
SPELLING: 

Number  pupils  who  took  test    .      .      .      .  85 

Average  percent  correct 40 . 6 

ARITHMETIC  : 

Number  pupils  who  took  test    ....  79 

Average  percent  correct 29.4 


1905 

245 
51.2 

245 

65.5 

Below  are  the  words  of  the  spelling  test, — a  formidable  list,— 
with  the  results  of  the  examination  in  1846  given  in  two  tables: 

TABLE  I. 


1     accidental  
2     accessible      .  .  . 

Girls,  32 

Boys,  53 

Total,  85 

Times 
Correct 

Times 
Incorrect 

Percent 
Correct 

.5  o 
HO 

Times 
Incorrect 

Percent 
Correct 

Times 
Correct 

Times 
Incorrect 

•£  ^ 
6  o 

8  £ 

V-4       l-f 

0)   O 
PnO 

22 
14 
16 
10 
14 
15 
8 
10 
5 
13 
7 
7 
12 
17 
16 
16 
8 
12 
8 
6 

10 
18 
16 

22 
18 
17 
24 
22 
27 
19 
25 
25 
20 
15 
16 
16 
24 
20 
24 
26 

39 
17 

38 
20 
25 
25 
16 
29 
12 
29 
21 
16 
21 
25 
24 
34 
12 
20 
25 
7 

14 
36 
15 
33 
28 
28 
37 
24 
41 
24 
32 
37 
32 
28 
29 
19 
41 
33 
28 
46 

61 
31 
54 
30 
39 
40 
24 
39 
17 
42 
28 
23 
33 
42 
40 
50 
20 
32 
33 
13 

24 

54 
31 
55 
46 
45 
61 
46 
68 
43 
57 
62 
52 
43 
45 
35 
65 
53 
52 
72 

3     baptism 

4     chirography.  .  . 
5     characteristic  .  . 
6     deceitfully  
7     descendant  .... 
8     eccentric  

9     evanescent.  .  .  . 
10     fierceness  

1  1     f  eignedly  
12     ghastliness  
13     gnawed  
14     heiress  

15     hysterics  .    .  .  . 

16     imbecility  
17     inconceivable.  . 
18     inconvenience.  . 
19     inefficient  
20     irresistible  

Total  

236 

404 

36.9 

455 

605 

42.9 

691 

1009 

40.6 

21 


10  THE       SPRINGFIELD       TESTS 


TABLE  II. 


Number  of  pupils  who  had  Girls         Boys     Total 

0  word  correct 2  1  3 

1  word  correct  ....  3  6  9 

2  words  correct 5  1  6 

3  words  correct 0  6  6 

4  words  correct 0  1  1 

5  words  correct 2  3  5 

6  words  correct 3  2  5 

7  words  correct 4  2  6 

8  words  correct 1  4  5 

9  words  correct 1  2  3 

10  words  correct 0  4  4 

11  words  correct 1  7  8 

12  words  correct 1  2  3 

13  words  correct 3  1  4 

14  words  correct 1  0  1 

15  words  correct 1  1  2 

16  words  correct 0  1  1 

17  words  correct 1  5  6 

18  words  correct 1  0  1 

19  words  correct 1  3  4 

20  words  correct 1  1  2 

Of  the  class  of  1846,  only  16  of  the  85  pupils  stood  as  high  as 
70  percent  in  this  spelling  test,  the  present  " passing"  mark  in 
most  schools.  Three  pupils  had  none  spelled  correctly;  nine  had 
only  one  right;  while  24,  or  more  than  one-fourth  of  the  entire 
class,  misspelled  1 7  or  more  words.  The  mistakes  were  interesting. 
The  31  who  misspelled  " baptism"  spelled  it  in  15  different  ways, 
and  "heiress"  was  written  by  43  pupils  in  22  different  ways.  The 
following  words,  taken  from  the  papers  in  spelling  and  geography 
prove  that  originality  in  spelling  was  not  unknown  to  the  children 
of  Mr.  Parish's  school. 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS 


11 


heirress 

babtism 

Agsta 

hurriss 

babtisism 

Bristle 

heirruss 

batism 

Suffork 

heirees 

batisim 

Midlesex 

heirness 

baptsim 

Esexx 

hieress 

baptisim 

Berkshiere 

heress 

baptisimn 

Eirie 

hirress 

baptisem 

Ontareio 

hereis 

baptisom 

Mane 

airress 

baptisum 

Vamont 

airess 

baptisemn 

Rodiland 

airest 

baptisim 

Connetticut 

airresst 

baptysm 

Cornedicut 

airhess 

baptisiam 

Newjessy 

arress 

baptiasm 

Pencilvany 

arris 

Mishegan 

arriss 

Mysurie 

aries 

Misury 

ariest 

areress 

arerest 

eirress 

decietfully 

inconvience 

fiercness 

deceitefully 

inconvieneiance 

firerceness 

deceatfully 

inconvienence 

firceness 

deceatfuly 

incoeinance 

fierseness 

decetfully 

inconveinence 

fiecness 

deceitfuly 

inconveaneyance 

fisness 

decitefully 

inconveinance 

feiceness 

deceitfully 

inconvenianse 

feirceness 

deciotfully 

inconvienience 

fearsness 

decitfully 

inconveinience 

feaceness 

descitfully 

inconvenence 

fearceness 

disceatfully 

inconveince 

fearciness 

dicetfuly 

inconveniance 

ferceness 

dissceetfuly 

inconvienance 

fearness 

disceitfully 

inconveiniant 

fearcness 

inconveince 

THE       SPRINGFIELD       TESTS 


'/• 


^x       * 

*y,       •£<~C^£VT^,Os^i£/ 

/ '.      Orjpa^&^e 
o.     6,  -'< 

fff  . 


//. 

/&.     ^f^&jf^^cJ^ 

*>  ^r3 


//. 

/-V.,  C/V^ 


a.t. 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS  13 

Below  are  the  problems  in  arithmetic: 

1.  Add  together  the  following  numbers:    Three  thousand  and 
nine,  twenty-nine,  one,  three  hundred  and  one,  sixty-one,  sixteen, 
seven  hundred,  two,  nine  thousand,  nineteen  and  a  half,  one  and  a 
half. 

2.  Multiply  10,008  by  8,009. 

3.  In  a  town  five  miles  wide  and  six  miles  long,  how  many 
acres  ? 

4.  How  many  steps  of  two  and  a  half  feet  each,  will  a  person 
take  in  walking  one  mile? 

5.  What  is  one-third  of  175 J? 

6.  A   boy  bought  three  dozen  oranges  for  37^  cts.,  and  sold 
them  for  1J  cts.  apiece;   what  would  he  have  gained  if  he  had  sold 
them  for  2-J  cts.  apiece? 

7 .  There  is  a  certain  number  -J-  of  which  exceeds  }  of  it  by  2 ; 
what  is  the  number? 

8.  What  is  the  simple  interest  of  $1200  for  12  y.  11  m.  29  d.? 
In  examining  these  papers,  twelve   and  one-half  percent  was 

allowed  for  each  problem  when  the  answer  was  correct;  nothing 
was  credited  for  method  or  for  partially  correct  work.  The  dollar 
sign  was  omitted  in  so  many  answers  that  it  was  decided  to  deduct 
nothing  for  its  omission.  The  omission  of  a  necessary  decimal 
point  made  an  answer  incorrect  and  nothing  was  allowed  even  if 
the  work  was  correct  in  every  other  particular.  Of  course  this 
method  of  marking  was  as  fair  to  the  pupils  of  1846  as  to  those  of 
1905  for  all  papers  were  marked  on  the  same  scale. 

The  following  tables  present  in  a  concise  form  the  results  of  the 
examination  in  arithmetic  in  1846: 


* 


"•t 


Ar 


/-?- 


y  ^3iii 


PAPERS   OF  TWO  BOYS  OF  1846 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS 


15 


TABLE  III. 


Girls 

>,  29 

Boys 

5,  50 

Tota 

1,  79 

PROBLEM 

Times 
Omitted 

Times 
Correct 

Times 
Incorrect 

Percent 
Correct 

Times 
Omitted 

-t-3 

in    0 

8   % 

Is 

Times 
Incorrect 

Percent 
Correct 

Times 
Omitted 

-M 

w   & 

1 

HO 

Times 
Incorrect 

Percent 
Correct 

First  

0 

10 

19 

0 

25 

25 

0 

35 

44 

Second  

0 

17 

1? 

1 

33 

16 

1 

50 

28 

Third  

9 

7 

13 

16 

14 

20 

25 

21 

33 

Fourth     .... 

11 

0 

18 

IS 

11 

24 

26 

11 

42 

Fifth  

0 

8 

21 

6 

20 

24 

6 

28 

45 

Sixth 

10 

0 

19 

16 

7 

27 

26 

7 

46 

Seventh  
Eighth 

17 
15 

9 
3 

3 
11 

32 
19 

12 
10 

6 
21 

49 
34 

21 
13 

9 
32 

Total  

62 

54 

116 

23.3 

105 

132 

163 

33 

167 

186 

279 

29.4 

TABLE  IV. 


< 


Number  who  had 

0  problem  correct 

1  problem  correct 

2  problems  correct 

3  problems  correct 

4  problems  correct 

5  problems  correct 

6  problems  correct 

7  problems  correct 

8  problems  correct 


Number  who  had 

0  problem  omitted 

1  problem  omitted 

2  problems  omitted 

3  problems  omitted 

4  problems  omitted 

5  problems  omitted 

6  problems  omitted 

7  problems  omitted 

8  problems  omitted 


TABLE  V. 


Girls 

Boys 

8 

10 

9 

8 

2 

6 

2 

10 

5 

5 

3 

6 

0 

3 

0 

2 

0 

0 

Girls 

Boys 

10 

12 

3 

11 

3 

9 

4 

7 

4 

5 

4 

2 

1 

3 

0 

1 

0 

0 

Total 

18 

17 

8 

12 

10 

9 

3 

2 

0 


Total 

22 

14 

12 

11 

9 

6 

4 

1 

0 


16 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS 


90* 


fC 


9  oo  / 


tf 

T. 

Ju_ 
/7/J7  ^  ^3*^ 


g- 


FAC-SIMILE  OF  AN  ARITHMETIC  PAPER  OF  1846 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS  17 

The  first  two  examples,  requiring  only  abstract  number  work, 
are  of  the  kind  in  which  the  " schools  of  our  fathers"  are  supposed 
to  have  given  that  incessant  drill  in  which  the  modern  school  is 
said  to  be  lacking.  Only  44  percent  of  the  class  had  the  first 
correct,  and  even  in  the  second  where  the  only  chance  for  a  mistake 
was  in  the  actual  multiplying,  37  percent  or  more  than  one-third 
of  the  class  were  wrong.  Again  in  the  fifth,  another  abstract  ex- 
ample, for  which  the  drill  method  should  have  prepared  the  pupils, 
six  boys  found  it  too  difficult  even  to  try  and  only  36  percent  of 
the  class  had  it  correct.  Of  29  girls,  not  one  had  the  right  answer 
to  the  fourth  or  sixth,  and  only  three  girls  and  ten  boys  worked 
the  interest  problem  to  a  successful  conclusion. 

A  striking  feature  of  the  work  in  arithmetic  was  the  variety  in 
the  answers  as  obtained  by  different  pupils.  The  incorrect  answers 
were  often  so  far  from  the  correct  answers  as  to  overwhelm  one  with 
the  conviction  that  the  children  were  entirely  lacking  in  power  to 
mentally  approximate  the  results.  Answers  to  the  fifth  example 
varied  from  5J  to  6312.  Below  are  some  of  the  incorrect  answers 
to  the  problem  in  simple  interest.  Dollar  signs,  decimal  points, 
and  commas  are  the  pupils',  the  first  two  conspicuous  chiefly  by 
their  absence. 

2.15.80                     93.28  31966f 

87.58.00                   $93.58  93,580 

1860,58                     96.86  491040 

110,88,05                    114.00  892800 

115.08  1908000 

$179.80  4593600 

449.500  5587200 

475.00  170017400 
638.00                    11038980000 

907.92  72 i 
932.200 
$937.80 
9328. 

In  comparing  the  results  in  these  two  tests,  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  the  pupils  who  took  the  tests  in  1846  were  all  high  school 
pupils  and  that  the  course  of  study  at  that  time  covered  only  three 


18  THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS 

years.  Further  on  in  this  little  book  is  a  chapter  devoted  to  the 
discussion  of  the  fairness  of  these  tests  but  one  or  two  questions 
at  least  may  well  be  discussed  here.  Ought  not  present  day  ninth 
grade  grammar  school  pupils  be  better  qualified  to  solve  these 
examples  in  arithmetic  than  these  high  school  pupils?  Had  not 
these  high  school  pupils  forgotten  much  of  their  knowledge  of 
arithmetic?  These  questions  naturally  suggest  themselves  to  those 
who  have  in  mind  only  the  present  day  course  of  study ;  but  years 
ago  the  grammar  school  branches  were  continued  in  the  high  school. 
The  first  year  work  in  the  old  high  school  included  work  in  arith- 
metic, English  grammar,  geography,  history  of  the  United  States 
and  algebra.  Twenty-five  weeks  were  given  to  arithmetic  and  about 
half  the  members  of  the  school  took  the  work.  In  addition,  a  ten- 
weeks'  course  in  mensuration  was  given  during  the  second  year, 
while  a  general  review  was  taken  in  the  last  half  of  the  senior  year. 

But  the  objection  may  be  made  that  the  work  in  arithmetic 
in  the  old  high  school  was  probably  advanced  work,  and  as  such 
was  hardly  fitted  to  prepare  these  pupils  well  for  abstract  work  in 
whole  numbers  and  fractions,  simple  interest  and  simple  mensura- 
tion. Our  present  course  of  study  for  grades  eight  and  nine  in- 
cludes work  in  square  root,  bank  discount,  stocks  and  bonds, 
partial  payments,  mensuration  and  inventional  geometry.  It  is 
to  be  questioned  whether  the  old  high  school  course  was  more 
advanced  than  this.  These  facts  would  seemingly  justify  the 
opinion  that  the  high  school  pupils  of  1846  brought  to  this  arith- 
metic test  nearly  as  recent  knowledge  of  the  simple  operations 
involved  as  did  the  children  who  tried  the  same  work  in  1905. 

No  such  question  can  be  raised  regarding  the  fairness  of  the  test 
in  spelling.  It  will  be  conceded  at  once  by  every  fair-minded  person 
that  these  high  school  children  were  probably  better  spellers  than 
they  were  when  they  were  in  the  highest  grammar  grade.  This 
would  be  true  as  a  result  of  the  English  work  in  the  high  school 
even  if  spelling  were  not  particularly  emphasized.  But  spelling 
was  not  neglected  even  in  the  high  school.  The  principal  tells  us 
in  one  of  his  early  reports  that  regular  spelling  exercises,  which 
were  rigidly  criticised,  were  required  in  the  high  school  until  the 
pupils  made  it  obvious  that  they  were  no  longer  necessary.  If,  as 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS 


19 


high  school  pupils,  the  children  averaged  only  40.6  percent  in  this 
spelling  test,  what  would  have  been  the  extent  of  their  failure  had 
it  been  given  to  them  as  grammar  grade  pupils? 

The  results  of  these  two  tests  seem  to  indicate  that  today, 
children  are  not  only  better  spellers,  but  that  they  reason  better 
in  arithmetic  and  are  more  accurate  in  ciphering  than  children  of 
about  the  same  age  half  a  century  ago. 


Locational  Geography 

THERE  is  a  strong  feeling  among  the  critics  of  modern  educa- 
tion that  place  geography  or  the  knowledge  of  the  location 
of  places  is  being  neglected  in  our  present  courses  of  study 
in  elementary  schools.  Some  teachers  share  this  opinion  and 
eminent  educators  are  frequently  heard  to  refer  to  the  schools  of 
years  ago  as  being  much  more  effective  in  this  line  than  the  schools 
of  today.  Are  these  feelings  and  opinions  well  founded?  Has  the 
" enrichment"  of  the  course  in  geography  in  lessening  the  amount 
of  drill  on  location,  lessened  the  children's  knowledge  of  location? 
Opinions  unsupported  by  evidence  are  hardly  to  be  trusted  in 
discussing  such  questions.  What  are  the  facts? 

For  the  purpose  of  forming  an  enlightened  opinion  on  this  matter 
the  writer  has  spent  some  time  in  investigating  former  methods 
and  in  examining  old  text  books  and  papers.  Believing  that  the 
old  geography  test  of  1846  is  a  fair  example  of  the  work  of  half  a 
century  ago,  these  questions  have  recently  been  given  to  several 
ninth  grade  classes  of  different  buildings  in  Springfield  and  results 
compared.  The  papers  were  printed,  as  in  the  arithmetic  test 
exactly  like  the  original  and  all  -the  examining  and  marking  was 
done  by  the  writer.  Most  of  the  questions  relate  to  the  United 
States,  and  as  North  America  is  made  the  special  subject  of  study 
in  the  sixth  year  of  the  present  school  course,  pupils  of  that  grade 
could  without  doubt  show  better  results  in  this  test  than  the  higher 
grade  pupils  to  whom  it  was  given.  The  work  of  .the  ninth  year  in 
particular  has  scarcely  any  connection  with  the  geography  of 
North  America  and  these  tests  were  given  to  the  children  near  the 
end  of  their  ninth  year  in  school. 

The  table  below  gives  the  result: 

1846  1906 

Number  of  pupils  who  took  test     ....  81  219 

Average  percent  correct       .      .      .      .      .      .  40.3  53.4 

Although  neither  average  is  high,  the  difference,  when  one 
considers  the  number  of  children  involved  and  the  narrow  character 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS  21 

of  the  test,  is  sufficiently  large  to  lead  one  to  conclude  that  the  work 
of  today  in  this  study  is  better  than  it  was  formerly. 

The  questions,  nearly  all  of  which  relate  to  the  United  States, 
follow : 

1.  What  is  Latitude? 

2.  What  is  Longitude? 

3.  In  what  direction  does  the  river  St.  Lawrence  flow? 

4.  Name  the  four  large  lakes  between  the  United  States  and 
the  British  possessions. 

5.  Name  the  States  bordering  on  those  four  lakes,  and  their 
capitals. 

6.  What  large  bay  lies  east  of  Massachusetts? 

7.  Name  the  New  England  States  and  their  capitals. 

8.  What  river  is  the  boundary  between  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia? 

9.  Name  the  three  large  branches  of  the  Mississippi  on  the 
west  side. 

10.  What  is  the  largest  lake  lying  wholly  in  the  United  States? 

11.  Name  the  counties  in  Massachusetts. 

12.  Name  the  largest  river  in  the  eastern  part  of  Massachusetts. 
In  1846,  when  this  test  was  originally  given,  there  were  only 

four  states  bordering  on  the  four  great  lakes  referred  to  in  the  fifth 
question.  These  states  were  as  follows : — New  York,  Pennsylvania, 
Ohio  and  Michigan, — and  their  capitals  were  Albany,  Harrisburg, 
Columbus  and  Detroit  respectively.  At  that  time,  also,  two  of 
the  New  England  States,  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut,  had  two 
capitals  each.  These  facts  were  kept  in  mind  in  marking  the  old 
papers. 

Five  percent  was  allowed  for  correct  answers  to  each  of  the 
first,  second,  sixth  and  twelfth  questions,  ten  per  cent  for  correct 
answers  to  each  of  the  others.  The  writer  adopted  this  scale  because 
the  sixth  and  twelfth  questions  related  to  one  state  and  called  for 
single -word  answers  and  the  first  and  second  were  opposites  and 
were  generally  either  both  correct  or  both  wrong.  Due  credit  was 
given  for  a  partial  answer,  as  for  example,  in  the  fourth,  two  and 
a  half  percent  was  allowed  for  each  lake  correctly  named. 


22  THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS 

It  needs  but  a  glance  at  this  old  test  to  discover  that  the  ques- 
tions are  all  tests  of  the  memory;  there  is  not  a  thought  question 
among  them.  Names  of  lakes,  names  of  bays,  names  of  rivers, 
names  of  states,  names  of  capitals,  names  of  counties  and  for 
variety  two  definitions!  How  would  the  pupils  of  1846  have  ans- 
wered the  following: — Why  does  the  St.  Lawrence  River  never 
have  floods?  Give  causes  for  the  difference  in  climate  between 
England  and  New  England.  Why  has  New  York  become  the  great- 
est commercial  center  in  the  United  States  ?  Name  five  cities  located 
at  the  head  of  navigation  on  rivers  of  the  United  States  emptying 
into  the  Atlantic. 

This  old  test  is  indicative  of  the  geography  work  of  the  times. 
There  were  three  books  in  use  in  Springfield  in  1846: — Mitchell's 
Primary  Geography,  used  with  children  as  soon  as  they  were  able  to 
'  'spell  and  read  with  facility, ' '  Morse's  Geography,  used  in  intermediate 
grades,  and  Mitchell's  Geography  and  Atlas  for  grammar  grade  work. 

The  primary  book  contained  83  lessons  and  14  maps.  In  this 
book,  the  child  was  introduced  to  this  subject  in  15  lessons  of  which 
the  following  is  a  sample : — 

LESSON  3 
Of  the  Surface  of  the  Earth. 

Question.     What  is  the  earth? 

Answer.     One  of  the  planets. 

Q.     Of  what  does  the  surface  of  the  earth  consist? 

A .     Land  and  water. 

Q.      How  much  of  the  earth's  surface  consists  of  land? 

A.     A  quarter,  or  one-fourth. 

Q.     How  much  more  water  than  land  is  there? 

A.     Three  times  more  water  than  land. 

Q.  What  is  the  chief  part  of  the  water  on  the  surface  of  the 
earth  called? 

A.     The  sea  or  ocean. 

For  the  purpose  of  being  more  easily  understood,  different 
parts  of  the  water  are  called  by  different  names,  as  you  will  learn 
in  the  next  lesson. 

Q.     Are  the  waters  of  the  earth  salt  or  fresh? 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS  23 

A.     They  are  salt. 

Q.     What  part  of  the  waters  on  the  earth  is  fresh? 

A.     Lakes  and  rivers  have  generally  fresh  water. 

Such  lessons  were  probably  learned  and  recited  in  many  schools 
in  question  and  answer  style  as  this  was  a  method  of  recitation 
quite  popular  in  the  early  days.  This  catechism  work  was  followed 
by  61  lessons  of  which  14  were  map  studies  and  47  were  devoted  to 
the  history  and  general  description  of  the  continents  and  countries. 
These  descriptive  lessons  made  little  mention  of  the  manners  and 
customs  of  people, — the  side  of  geography  especially  emphasized 
in  lower  grade  work  now, — but  place  geography  or  the  location  of 
places  on  the  maps  was  given  much  attention.  Children  were 
directed  to  point  out  not  only  rivers,  cities  and  countries  of  near-by 
importance,  but  such  places  as  "  Barbary,  Egypt,  Nubia,  Abyssinia, 
Darfur,  Soudan,  Senegambia,  Guinea,  Ethiopia,  Cape  Colony, 
Caffraria,  Mozambique,  Zanguebar,  Berbora,"  etc.  In  these  14 
lessons  the  direction,  "Point  out"  is  given  146  times  followed  in 
each  case  by  from  five  to  1 5  names.  In  those  times  the  books  formed 
principally  the  courses  of  study,  and  we  may  well  conclude  that 
before  leaving  the  primary  school,  the  Springfield  child  had  "  pointed 
out"  and  named  more  or  less  faithfully  hundreds  of  places  on  the 
maps.  This  work  was  done  with  children  corresponding  in  age  to 
our  second,  third  and  fourth  grade  pupils. 

Morse's  Geography  used  in  the  middle  grades,  was  a  pretentious 
volume  of  three  or  four  hundred  pages  of  which  about  one  hundred 
were  devoted  to  the  study  of  the  United  States.  The  first  seventeen 
pages  consisted  of  definitions  and  explanations  supposed  to  be 
necessary  to  an  understanding  of  geography.  History  and  de- 
scriptive matter  were  made  prominent.  The  descriptions,  although 
containing  much  that  was  interesting  to  children,  still  touched 
lightly  upon  those  manners  and  customs  which  so  attract  the 
interest  of  children  today. 

Mitchell's  Geography  and  Atlas  was  one  of  the  best  illustrated 
school  books  of  the  time.  It  was  an  interesting  book  of  more  than 
three  hundred  pages  which  was  kept  up  to  date  by  the  plan  of  its 
author  providing  for  a  revision  every  five  years.  The  book  began 
with  43  pages  of  definitions,  printed  in  catechetical  style,  followed 


24  THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS 

by  25  pages  of  map  questions.  There  were  whole  pages  of  questions 
commencing  with  "  What,"-  "  What  sea  lies  east  of  Cochin  China," 
etc.  If  this  dose  of  68  pages  of  definitions  and  map  questions  was 
really  administered  to  the  youth  of  the  by-gone  generation,  the 
school  committee  were  probably  not  far  from  the  truth  regarding  its 
effects  on  the  pupils  when  they  stated  in  an  early  report  that  such 
a  grinding  method, — "after  having  worked  its  appropriate  results 
on  their  heads,  will  be  very  likely  to  display  its  efficacy  in  their 
heels."  This  book  treated  the  United  States  in  nearly  one  hundred 
pages. 

These  three  books,  used  in  Springfield  in  1846  below  the  high 
school,  give  us  a  definite  idea  regarding  the  character  of  the  work 
in  this  study.  It  is  probable  that  much  of  the  pupil's  time  was 
spent  in  learning  definitions  and  "locating"  places.  The  old  test 
was  such  as  would  naturally  follow  work  in  which  map- visualizing 
and  word-memorizing  were  so  strongly  emphasized.  Many  people 
of  today,  even,  would  naturally  suppose  that  pupils  who  were 
taught  according  to  -these  drill  methods  would  excel  in  such  a  test. 
The  results  prove  the  contrary.  As  further  proof  of  the  failure  of 
the  pupils  of  the  olden  time  to  retain  geographical  facts,  the  fol- 
lowing analysis  of  the  geography  test  of  1846  is  submitted. 

RESULTS  OF  TEST  OF  1846 

Number  of  Pupils  who  took  the  test,  81. 
Number  of  pupils  whose  answers  were 

Correct  Omitted     Incorrect  or 
Incomplete 

First  question 27  29 

Second  question         ....            21  30  30 

Third  question ^22  52 

Fourth  question         ....            19  11  51 

Fifth  question 1  38  42 

Sixth  question 65  6  10 

Seventh  question       ....  18  56 

Eighth  question         ....            29  33  19 

Ninth  question 18  39  24 

Tenth  question 16  23  42 

Eleventh  question     ....              2  26  53 

Twelfth  question        ....            24  23  34 


THE        SPRINGFIELD       TESTS  25 


What  is  Latitude  ? 


2      What  is  Longitude  ' 


:»     In  what  direction  does  the  river  St  Lawrence  run  ' 

4      Name  the  four  large  lakes  between  the  United  States  ind  the  British  possess..!,,..        &/l&fL&      &O/L  <& 


5.     Name  the  States  bordering  on  those  four  lakes,  and  their  capitals. 


0.     What  large  Bay  lies  east  of  Massachusetts  1 

7      Name  the  New  England  States  and  their  capitals. 


(rfUJ      o£-     $4s?l&/l4 


*     What  river  is  the  boundary  between  South  Carolina^and  Georgia  J 
9.     Name  the  3  largest  branches  of  the  Mississippi  river  on  the  west  side. 


10.  What  is  the  largest  lake  lying  wholly  in  the  United  States  ? 

11.  Name  the  counties  in  Massachusetts. 


12.     Name  the  largest  river  in  the  eastern  part  of  Massachusetts 


A    GEOGRAPHY  PAPER  OF   1846 


26  THE       SPRINGFIELD       TESTS 

Over  one-fourth,  or  27.6  percent,  of  the  questions  remained 
unanswered.  Of  the  81  pupils,  only  one  wrote  the  correct  answer 
to  the  fifth,  and  but  two  to  the  eleventh.  None  of  the  3 1  girls  had 
the  fifth  or  the  eleventh  correct  and  only  one  had  the  right  answer 
to  the  ninth. 

In  answering  the  first  and  second  questions,  two-thirds  of  the 
pupils  failed  to  distinguish  between  latitude  and  longitude.  Both 
were  designated  as  "  lines,"  and  longitude  was  defined  on  one  paper 
as  "the  center  of  the  earth." 

In  the  third,  the  St.  Lawrence  River  was  made  to  flow  in  every 
possible  direction,  the  answers  being  as  follows:— 

North 12     South-east 4     N.  and  S 1 

North-east 22     South-west 11     N.  E.  and  S.  W.  .  .   2 

North-west 2     East 7     No  answer 7 

South 9     West 4 

The  chief  difficulty  in  the  fourth  seemed  to  be  in  locating  Lake 
Michigan,  47  pupils  naming  it  as  part  of  the  boundary  line  between 
the  United  States  and  the  British  possessions. 

In  the  sixth,  the  answer  was  considered  correct  if  Cape  Cod  Bay 
or  Massachusetts  Bay  was  named.  Among  the  other  bays  given  as 
answers  appeared  Narragansett,  Delaware,  Fundy,  Baffin  and 
Biscay. 

The  seventh  should  have  been  easily  mastered  as  these  children 
must  have  spent  hours  of  drill  on  this  question.  Less  than  one- 
fourth  of  the  class,  however,  succeeded.  Sixteen  states  were  named 
as  belonging  to  the  New  England  group,  among  them  North  and 
South  Carolina,  Georgia  and  Alabama.  Montpelier  was  named  as 
the  capital  of  three  of  the  New  England  states,  while  Rhode  Island 
was  given  for  its  capitals, — Providence,  Newport,  Newburyport, 
Nantucket  and  Martha's  Vineyard. 

Of  the  81  pupils,  48  attempted  to  answer  the  eighth  question. 
Among  their  answers  appeared  Savannah,  Mississippi,  Columbia, 
Susquehanna,  Apalachicola,  Nueces,  Red,  Delaware,  Rocky,  St. 
Lawrence  and  Alabama. 

The  ninth  and  tenth  were  among  the  most  difficult,  39  pupils, 
or  nearly  half  the  class  making  no  effort  to  answer  the  former, 
while  only  16  had  the  latter  correct. 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS  27 

Ability  to  name  the  counties  of  Massachusetts  was  one  of  the 
rigid  requirements  in  the  old  Bay  State  schools.  Pupils  were  made 
to  repeat  the  counties  in  order  from  Berkshire  to  Nantucket.  In 
the  above  test,  however,  only  two  named  the  fourteen  counties 
correctly, — 26  wrote  no  answers  whatever,  while  19  others  wrote 
the  names  of  four  counties  or  less.  This  question  alone  gave  the 
class  of  1846  a  decided  advantage  in  this  comparative  test  for  no 
effort  is  made  today  to  have  children  remember  names  of  so  many 
counties. 

The  Springfield  High  School  was  within  a  few  rods  of  the  Con- 
necticut river  in  western  Massachusetts,  yet  in  answering  the  last 
question,  22  pupils  named  that  river  as  the  largest  in  the  eastern 
part  of  Massachusetts.  The  Blackstone,  Housatonic,  Merrimac, 
Hudson,  St.  Lawrence  and  Mississippi  were  given  as  answers  while 
one  boy  guessed  "Fall  River." 

A  study  of  this  old  test  and  of  the  geography  text  books  in  use 
at  the  time  it  was  given  should  convince  us  of  the  futility  of  the 
methods  then  largely  practised  of  drilling  pupils  in  locating  places 
about  which  they  knew  practically  nothing.  In  spite  of  the  num- 
berless hours  of  drill  on  the  dry  bones  of  geography,  children  failed 
to  retain  the  facts  of  location.  The  modern  school  is  well  equipped 
with  sand  tables,  globes  and  wall  maps.  Location  constantly 
forces  itself  upon  the  attention  of  the  child  through  maps  in  the 
history  and  geography  texts.  Individual  teachers,  here  and  there, 
may  neglect  the  drill  in  location  as  they  may  neglect  any  other 
essential  feature  of  school  work,  but  the  modern  school  aims  to 
teach  location  not  merely  by  map  drill  but  by  arousing  an  interest 
in  location  through  books  of  travel, — through  a  study  of  manners 
and  customs  and  lives  of  peoples.  No  amount  of  dull  drill  on 
China, — as  so  many  lines  and  dots, — will  fix  the  map  of  China  in  a 
child's  mind;  but  a  study  of  the  life  of  the  Chinese  people  in  their 
struggles  against  nature, — their  homes,  dress,  habits,  occupations, 
recreations,  cities  and  means  of  communication  will  not  only  en- 
large and  liberalize  the  child's  mind  but  quite  incidentally  will  fix 
facts  of  location, — the  object  so  strenuously  aimed  at  by  the  old 
school.  It  is  the  human  element  which  was  almost  entirely  omitted 
from  the  geography  teaching  of  years  ago  which  makes  the  study 


28  THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS 

of  mountains  and  rivers  and  sea  coast  worth  while.  Cape  Cod  as 
a  barren  stretch  of  sand  extending  into  the  Atlantic  is  uninviting, 
but  for  a  hundred  years  it  has  worried  and  destroyed  our  vessels  and 
held  the  attention  of  our  law  makers.  Its  study  is  clothed  with 
life  when,  in  considering  it  as  a  barrier  to  commerce,  we  learn  about 
shipwrecks,  light-houses,  light-ships,  life-saving  stations  and  canals. 
How  much  richer  is  the  imagination  and  life  of  the  child  who 
spends  part  of  his  time  for  seven  or  eight  years  of  his  elementary 
school  course  in  reading  Jane  Andrews'  "Each  and  All"  and 
"Seven  Little  Sisters,"  Carroll's  "Around  the  World,"  Chaplin's 
"Little  Folks  of  Other  Lands,"  Kirby's  "Aunt  Martha's  Corner 
Cupboard,"  Schwatka's  "Children  of  the  Cold"  and  Carpenter's 
travels  in  the  various  countries, — than  the  child's  whose  precious 
youth  is  spent  in  memorizing  barren  and  unemotional  facts  and  in 
fixing  in  his  mind  relative  positions  of  unimportant  places.  A 
student  of  the  old  time  methods  is  not  surprised  when  he  finds 
evidence  proving  that  intelligent  adults  of  half  a  century  ago  criti- 
cised their  own  schools  severely.  In  one  of  the  many  intelligently 
critical  reports  of  the  Springfield  School  Committee  of  years  ago 
dissatisfaction  is  expressed  because  "the  hard  names  of  obscure 
and  distant  places,  rivers,  mountains,  or  other  objects,  perhaps 
in  another  hemisphere,  are  required  to  be  committed,  together  with 
dry  details  of  facts  concerning  governments,  commerce,  etc.,  etc., 
which  for  the  most  part  are  unintelligible  to  the  child." 


Penmanship 


THE  Springfield  pupils  of  1846  wrote  a  selection  of  poetry  as  a 
test  in  penmanship.     These  papers  of  about  eighty  children 
are  preserved"  in  the  old  volume  before  mentioned.     The 
selection  follows : — 

"Culture's  hand 

Has  scattered  verdure  o'er  the  land, 
And  smiles  and  fragrance  rule  serene, 
Where  barren  wild  usurped  the  scene. 
And  such  is  man — a  soil  which  breeds 
The  sweetest  flowers,  or  vilest  weeds; 
Flowers  lovely  as  the  morning's  light, 
Weeds  deadly  as  the  aconite; 
Just  as  his  heart  is  trained  to  bear 
The  poisonous  weed,  or  flow'ret  fair." 

This  selection  was  written  in  ink  of  questionable  quality  on  ruled 
paper  some  of  which  is  of  a  light  blue  tint.  The  papers,  not  only 
of  this  set  but  of  the  other  three  sets,  are  in  a  good  state  of  pres- 
ervation, but  the  ink  in  some  cases  is  somewhat  faded. 

In  this  booklet  will  be  found  three  pages  of  reduced  reproductions 
of  these  " specimen  penmanship"  papers,  the  work  of  six  pupils 
of  the  class  of  1846.  These  are  presented  as  evidences  of  poor  work 
in  this  subject.  Many  of  the  old  papers  testify  to  the  slow,  laborious 
effort  expended  in  their  production.  This  crabbed  writing,  quite 
common  in  the  old  school,  has  been  practically  eliminated  through 
the  modern  counting  method  and  supervision.  Some  of  the  papers 
are  excellent.  The  percentage  of  exceedingly  poor  ones,  however, 
is  very  much  larger  than  would  be  found  in  a  set  written  by  pupils 
of  today.  There  are  unquestionably  fewer  failures  in  writing  under 
our  supervised  system  than  there  were  formerly:  there  is  also, 
of  course,  greater  uniformity,  which  is  not  a  bad  thing  if  the  style 
is  satisfactory.  An  individual  style  develops  very  easily  and 
quickly  under  pressure  of  much  writing,  and  such  penmanship 
continues  a  "good  hand"  if  facility  in  movement,  and  ability  to 
produce  fundamental  lines  have  been  acquired. 


30  THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS 


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T  HE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS  33 

It  would,  of  course,  be  impossible  in  such  a  small  publication  as 
this,  to  reproduce  a  sufficient  number  of  whole  papers  of  penman- 
ship to  enable  the  reader  to  compare  the  work  of  two  large  classes 
of  pupils.  In  order  that  such  a  comparison  may  be  made,  however, 
as  will  enable  the  reader  to  form  a  fair  opinion  regarding  penman- 
ship, the  following  plan  has  been  carried  out.  The  work  of  24  girls 
of  1846  is  exhibited  on  page  34.  On  the  opposite  page  is  the  work 
of  24  girls  of  the  ninth  grade  of  1906.  The  fac-similes  of  1846  were 
formed  by  photographing  24  papers  and  taking  the  first  line  from 
the  first  paper,  the  second  line  from  the  second  paper,  etc.,  omitting 
only  such  papers  as  could  not  be  reproduced.  The  papers  in  the 
old  volume  are  arranged  alphabetically  and,  in  these  exhibits,  the 
papers  were  photographed  as  they  happened  to  come.  The  originals 
of  the  fac-similes  of  1906  were  formed  by  each  girl  writing  one  line 
of  the  stanza  on  "half  letter"  paper,  the  first  girl  writing  the  first 
line,  the  second  girl  the  second  line,  etc.,  according  to  the  regular 
seating  arrangement  of  the  class.  The  two  pages  of  exhibits  of 
boys'  writing  were  obtained  in  a  similar  way.  These  exhibits  speak 
for  themselves. 

Anybody  who  would  examine  the  eighty  or  more  sheets  of 
specimen  penmanship  of  the  class  of  1846  would  be  almost  willing 
to  accept  the  statement  of  the  School  Committee  of  Springfield  in 
their  report  of  1853,  that,  "  *  *  there  are  but  few  in  our  schools  who 
attain  excellence  in  this  beautiful  accomplishment,  or  even  a  moder- 
ate degree  of  skill."  Engraved  copies  and  penmanship  super- 
visors came  to  the  rescue  later.  During  the  past  ten  or  fifteen  years, 
people's  ideas  regarding  penmanship  have  been  quite  unsettled, 
owing  to  the  agitation  over  the  slant  and  vertical  systems,  and 
changes  have  followed  one  another  rapidly  in  most  communities. 
The  ninth  grade  children  whose  writing  is  exhibited  in  these  pages 
had  been  taught  three  different  styles  in  their  nine  years  of  school. 
In  the  primary  grades,  they  wrote  the  slant;  then,  for  five  or  six 
years,  the  vertical  was  practiced ;  finally,  about  a  year  before  they 
wrote  the  lines  exhibited  here,  they  changed  to  the  semi-slant. 
These  changes  have  resulted,  probably,  in  lowering  somewhat  the 
character  of  the  writing  of  the  present-day  school  children,  but, 
in  spite  of  this,  the  results,  as  a  whole,  seem  decidedly  superior  to 
those  attained  under  old-time  methods. 


PENMANSHIP    OF    24    GIRLS    OF    1846 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS  35 


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Successful  Careers  of  Pupils  of  1846 

TRACING  the  after  lives  of  the  pupils  of  the  class  of  1846 
reveals  much  of  value  to  parents  and  teachers.  Some  mem- 
bers of  the  class  are  still  living  in  Springfield.  They  have 
furnished  much  valuable  information  for  this  booklet  regarding 
conditions  in  the  old  schools,  and  have  made  it  possible  to  trace  the 
careers  of  some  of  their  classmates.  One  of  the  Springfield  citizens 
has  been  mayor  of  the  city;  another  is  a  leading  business  man. 
Both  were  successful  in  the  tests  and  both  are  most  estimable 
citizens.  A  girl  who  attempted  only  four  of  the  eight  examples 
and  had  them  all  wrong,  became  an  honored  member  of  the  Spring- 
field school  board.  A  boy,  who  missed  nineteen  of  the  twenty 
words  and  who  solved  only  three  of  the  eight  examples  correctly, 
became  president  of  a  bank,  and  for  years  was  one  of  Springfield's 
foremost  citizens.  Business  success  came  to  him  partly  as  a  result 
of  sterling  honesty;  and  sympathy,  charity  and  broad  helpfulness 
characterized  his  life.  At  his  death,  his  city  paid  unusual  honor 
to  his  memory.  Another  boy  who  had  but  two  examples  correct 
and  misspelled  nine  words  rose  to  the  head  of  a  bank  in  a  large  city 
in  a  neighboring  state.  Still  another  boy,  who  could  not  do  a  single 
example  and  who  could  spell  but  six  words  correctly,  became 
mayor  of  a  western  city. 

There  is  more  to  life  than  spelling  and  arithmetic,  and  school 
room  estimates  of  children  are  often  narrow  and  unjust.  Qualities 
of  character  which  cannot  be  measured  by  a  spelling  test  nor  by 
school  standards  are  determining  factors  in  life's  work.  In  recent 
years,  child  study,  with  its  fruits,— sympathy,  charity,  optimism,— 
has  done  much  to  break  up  the  rigidity  of  our  judgments  of  children 
and  to  make  the  paths  of  the  receptive,  diffident,  backward,  and 
wayward  children  happier  and  more  hopeful.  Through  experience 
and  maturity  is  acquired,  slowly,  the  wisdom  to  look  "into  the 
Endless  Promise"  of  childhood  and  see 

"  Good  lying  hid  from  all  eternity." 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS 


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THE        SPRINGFIELD       TESTS 


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THE  BOYHOOD  MISTAKES  OF  A  MAYOR  OF  A  WESTERN  CITY 


Conditions  in  the  Old  Schools 

ALE  these  comparisons  fair?    Were  not  the  schools  conducted 
in  such  a  manner  in  1846  as  to  make  a  fair  comparison 
impossible  today?     Was  not  the  school  year  shorter  than 
it  is  now?     Were  not  the  high  school  pupils  younger  than  the 
present  ninth  grade  children?     Should  not  these  tests  have  been 
given  to  pupils  of  the  eighth  or  possibly  the  seventh  grade  ?    These 
questions  can  be  answered  only  by  giving  some  facts  about  the 
schools  of  1846. 

The  Springfield  high  school  in  1846  was  located  on  State  street, 
on  the  site  of  the  present  court  house.  The  building  was  of  brick, 
and  two  stories  high,  with  an  entrance  on  State  street.  It  must 
have  been  about  80  or  90  feet  long  and  50  or  60  feet  wide.  There 
was  a  house  between  it  and  Elm  street,  and  a  lane  connected  the 
two  streets  west  of  the  school.  The  high  school  was  organized  in 
1841  for  the  center  district  of  the  town.  Rev.  Samuel  Lawton  was 
its  first  principal,  and  was  succeeded  in  1844  by  Ariel  Parish. 
Near  the  close  of  Mr.  Lawton's  term  the  building  was  remodeled, — 
a  two-story  addition  being  built  on  the  State  street  end.  This 
addition  provided  recitation  rooms  on  each  floor,  and  it  was  sur- 
mounted by  a  bell  tower.  On  the  first  floor  of  the  building  were 
two  rooms;  one,  on  the  east  side,  occupied  by  primary  pupils, 
the  other,  on  the  west  side,  used  for  intermediate  classes.  On  the 
second  floor  were  the  grammar  and  high  schools.  The  furniture 
on  this  floor  consisted  of  painted  pine  desks  roughly  finished. 
These  desks  and  their  supports  were  entirely  of  wood,  and  were 
made  to  accommodate  pupils  singly.  The  double  desks  with  iron 
supports  were  just  coming  into  use  and  were  installed  in  the  new 
building  on  Court  street,  which  was  opened  a  few  years  later. 
There  was  a  raised  platform,  two  steps  in  height,  in  the  south  end 
of  the  room,  which  had  to  be  crossed  by  children  in  passing  from 
the  main  room  to  the  recitation  rooms.  The  principal's  desk  stood 
near  the  center  of  the  raised  platform.  While  Mr.  Parish  was 
principal  the  whole  second  floor  in  the  older  part  of  the  building 
was  all  one  room.  As  the  room  was  three  or  four  times  as  large  as  one 


44 


THE       SPRINGFIELD       TESTS 


of  our  schoolrooms,  there  was  no  difficulty  in  conducting  several 
recitations  at  the  same  time. 

In  1846,  the  high  school  was  in  fair  condition.  It  consisted  of 
about  one  hundred  pupils,  who  were  considered  well  fitted  for  high 
school  work.  Mr.  Parish,  the  principal,  tells  us  in  his  report  that 
one  and  one-half  years  before,  "  a  second  male  teacher  was  em- 
ployed, who  took  off  a  large  class  of  the  younger  and  most  backward 
pupils."  The  foreign,  non-English  speaking  element,  which  makes 
instruction  so  difficult  in  many  of  the  schools  today,  was  entirely 
lacking,  as  is  shown  by  the  list  of  family  names  of  the  class  of  1846 
printed  below : 

Aitcheson  Ennis  Kendall  Smith 

Allen  Emmons  Kittredge  Spooner 

Barnes  Edwards  Lee  Stevens 

Bliss  Eldredge  Lombard  Savage 

Bush  Freeman  Moore  Safford 

Bartlett  Ferre  Morris  Stebbins 

Belden  Folsom  Mosely  Simpson 

Bowles  Fitch  Nettleton  Sikes 

Blair  Glover  Norcott  Taylor 

Brackett  Goodman  Parks  Todd 

Bradley  Grover  Phipps  Trask 

Bryant  Graves  Peabody  Tiffany 

Bemis  Gardner  Parker  Ward 

Colton  Hallett  Robinson  Washburn 

Clark  Hatfield  Rowland  Wilcox 

Chapin  Hastings  Ross  Wright 

Church  Harris  Reynolds  Whittlesey 

Devine  Hills  Sanderson  Wallace 

Dwight  Hunt  Ware 

Daniels  Jones 

Day 

The  school  year  was  longer  than  it  is  now.  The  report  of  the 
school  committee  for  the  year  1846  tells  us  that  the  school  year 
commenced  on  the  Monday  after  " Thanksgiving  week"  and  con- 
sisted of  four  terms  of  eleven  weeks  each, — a  total  of  44  weeks  of 
actual  school  work.  Children  attended  school  six  hours  a  day, 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS  45 

from  9.00  o'clock  to  12.00,  and  from  1.30  to  4.30.  During  the 
summer  term  school  began  at  8.00  o'clock  and  lasted  until  5.00, 
the  two  sessions  being  each  three  hours  in  length,  with  an  interval 
of  three  hours  between.  Our  school  year  is  approximately  1,000 
hours  in  length, — 40  weeks  of  25  hours  each.  In  1846  schools  were 
in  session  about  1320  hours, — 44  weeks  of  30  hours  each.  The  child 
who  attended  school  three  years  then  spent  as  many  hours  in  school 
as  one  who  attends  four  years  now. 

The  work  had  been  supervised,  and  Springfield  schools  were 
even  then  among  the  best.  Springfield  was  the  first  town  in  Massa- 
chusetts to  appoint  a  man  as  superintendent  of  schools  who  was  not 
already  on  the  school  board.  Samuel  S.  Green  began  his  work  as 
superintendent  of  schools  in  October,  1840,  six  years  before  these 
tests  were  given.  He  held  two  meetings  of  teachers  each  week,  one 
in  the  north  part  of  the  town  and  one  in  the  south.  The  result  of 
his  work  was  epitomized  by  Horace  Mann  in  a  letter  to  the  Spring- 
field committee  early  in  1842.  The  letter,  after  referring  to  a  recent 
visit  by  Mr.  Mann  to  seven  of  Springfield's  schools,  says:  "I  am 
sure  your  schools  have  made  more  progress  within  the  last  18 
months  than  during  the  three  previous  years."  Francis  D wight, 
editor  of  the  New  York  District  School  Journal,  who  had  been  for 
many  years  well  acquainted  with  Springfield  schools  and  who  had 
recently  visited  a  number  of  them,  wrote  about  the  same  time  in 
the  highest  terms  of  the  "  evidences  of  vigorous  and  true  advance- 
ment." This  pioneer  work  in  expert  supervision  was  indicative  of 
the  earnest,  aggressive  manner  in  which  the  Springfield  school 
board  attacked  the  problem  of  common  school  education,  and  it 
placed  the  public  schools  of  the  town  among  the  best  in  the  state. 

The  average  age  at  which  pupils  entered  the  high  school  was 
about  as  high  as  it  is  today.  In  1846,  of  the  3,351  pupils  enrolled 
in  Springfield,  166  were  over  16  years  of  age.  As  many  as  60  or  70 
of  these  must  have  been  in  the  high  school ;  this  would  leave  in  the 
grammar  schools  about  100,  or  three  percent  of  the  total  number 
enrolled.  In  1905,  of  the  9,576  pupils  enrolled  below  the  high  school, 
only  238,  or  less  than  2J  percent,  were  over  15 J  years  of  age. 
In  1846  there  were  53  children  under  four  years  of  age  attending 
school;  in  1905,  excluding  kindergartens,  there  were  only  twenty- 


46  THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS 

four  children  under  five  years.  These  figures  prove  that  in  1846 
larger  proportions  of  the  children  enrolled  below  the  high  school 
were  under  five  years  of  age  and  over  sixteen  than  is  true  at  the 
present  time.  We  would  conclude  also  that  as  the  high  school 
course  covered  three  years  the  average  age  of  the  pupils  of  the  old 
high  school  would  be  about  the  same  as  that  of  the  pupils  who  are 
doing  the  work  of  the  first  two  years  in  the  high  school  today. 

The  course  of  study  in  1846  was  quite  definite.  Reading,  writ- 
ing, arithmetic,  geography  and  spelling  were  about  all  the  branches 
taught  below  the  high  school.  Spelling  was  strongly  emphasized, 
as  the  following  extracts  from  the  course  of  study  and  high  school 
principal's  report  show:— 

"  No  one  shall  be  advanced  to  the  second  class  (third  year 
primary)  who  cannot  spell  with  ease  and  propriety  the  words 
in  'My  First  School  Book.'  " 

"No  one  to  be  advanced  to  the  first  class  (fourth  year  pri- 
mary) who  cannot  spell  words  easily  in  the  first  fifty  pages  of 
the  Spelling  Book." 

"  Accuracy  in  spelling  and  excellence  in  reading  are  deemed 
of  the  first  importance." 

"Ability  to  spell  correctly  is  deemed  highly  important,  as 
lying  at  the  foundation  of  all  requirements,  without  which  no 
person  can  be  accurate  or  intelligible  as  a  scholar,  or  ever  safe 
from  exposure  to  great  mortification  in  after  life." 

"  Regular  exercises  are  required  in  this  branch  (in  the  high 
school),  which  are  rigidly  criticised  until  the  pupils  make  it 
obvious  that  they  are  no  longer  necessary." 
How  many  of  the  1,320  hours  were  given  to  drill  in  spelling  it 
would  be  difficult  to  tell.    With  Springfield  at  one  end  of  the  state 
declaring  that  ability  to  spell  lay  "  at  the  foundation  of  all  require- 
ments," and  that  "no  person  could  be  intelligible  as  a  scholar" 
without  it;   and  Cambridge  at  the  other  end  urging  the  use  of  the 
spelling  book  as  a  book  which  in  the  day  of  the  fathers  was  ' '  ever 
acknowledged  'the  only  sure  guide  to  the  English  tongue,'  "  we  may 
reasonably  conclude  that  not  only  in  Springfield,  but  throughout 
the  state,  spelling  was  given  the  place  of  prominence.    These  facts 
and  statistics  seem  to  prove  that  Springfield's  schools  were  such  in 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS  47 

1846  that  those  who  took  the  tests  originally  had  many  advantages 
over  the  ninth  grade  pupils,  to  whom  the  tests  were  given  in  1905-06. 
English  was  spoken  in  all  the  homes ;  the  school  year  was  one-third 
longer  than  it  is  now ;  six  years  before  the  tests  were  given  a  super- 
intendent had  begun  his  expert  work ;  there  were  few  studies,  hence 
more  time  could  be  given  to  each;  the  high  school  was  well  estab- 
lished, as  it  had  been  in  existence  five  years  under  two  able  princi- 
pals ;  the  young  and  backward  children  had  been  taken  out  of  the 
high  school  nearly  two  years  before;  and,  finally,  the  average  age 
of  the  pupils  was  higher  than  that  of  the  present  ninth  grade. 

Yet*  with  all  these  advantages,  and  compared  only  in  the  few 
branches  on  which  all  the  hours  were  spent  and  in  which  the  old 
schools  were  supposed  to  excel,  the  children  of  today  proved 
decidedly  more  efficient.  Does  this  not  seem  to  indicate  that  there 
was  something  wrong  in  the  old-time  methods?  The  critics  of 
today  were  children  in  the  schools  whose  methods  and  results  they 
praise.  Were  they  capable  of  forming  a  correct  judgment  of  the 
character  of  the  work?  What  did  the  adults, — the  members  of 
school  committees, — of  that  generation  think  of  the  schools  which 
they  supported  and  in  which  their  children  were  being  educated? 
There  is  plenty  of  evidence  in  the  Springfield  reports  bearing  upon 
this  question  As  early  as  1840,  the  school  committee  expressed 
themselves  as  follows : — 

"There  are  prominent  faults  in  which  spelling,  English 
grammar,  arithmetic  and  geography,  are  taught  in  many  of 
our  schools." 

SPELLING:  "Discharging  at  a  class  whole  columns  of  words, 
with  the  meaning  of  which,  they  are  as  familiar  as  they  would 
be  with  so  many  terms  selected  from  the  Hebrew  or  Sanscrit, 
is  certainly  not  a  very  fascinating  mode  of  teaching  pupils  the 
orthography  of  our  language." 

ARITHMETIC  AND  GRAMMAR:  "  Taxing  their  memories  with 
the  rules  of  grammar  and  arithmetic,  whilst  they  know  nothing 
of  their  true  import  or  application" — is  condemned. 

READING:  "The  most  superficial  inspection  of  our  schools, 
is  sufficient  to  disclose  in  this  particular,  not  only  a  multitude 
of  faults,  but  a  whole  system  of  fundamental  error.  Indeed  it  may 


48  THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS 

be  doubted  whether  its  intrinsic  importance  has  been  in  any  due 
degree  felt  by  the  mass  of  those  to  whom  the  management  of 
these  schools  has  been  submitted.  Had  it  been,  our  schools  in 
this  particular,  would  be  already  undergoing  a  radical  reform, 
and  the  equanimity  of  the  committee  or  visitors  would  no 
longer  be  disturbed  by  the  senseless  jingle  of  sentences  as  a 
substitute  for  reading." 

PENMANSHIP:     (In  Report  of  1853):     "     *     *     there  are 
but  few  in  our  schools  who  attain  excellence  in  this  beautiful 
accomplishment,  or  even  a  moderate  degree  of  skill." 
Yet  Springfield's  schools  were  admittedly  among  the  best  in  the 
state,  then  as  now.    Are  not  such  statements,  made  by  the  adults 
then  in  control  of  the  old  schools,  more  reliable  than  the  present-day 
laudation  of  the  same  schools  by  people  who  saw  only  through  the 
eyes  of  childhood? 

Somewhat  astonishing  in  view  of  the  criticism  of  modern  methods 
of  teaching  and  of  so-called  "fads,"  are  the  recommendations  made 
by  the  Springfield  school  committee  in  1840. 

"For  an  exercise  in  spelling,  let  the  words  be  selected  from 
some  paragraph  that  has  been  read.     Let  their  meaning  also  be 
understood;   and  then  let  them  be  written  out  by  each  scholar 
in  the  class.     This  will  afford  exercise  for  the  mind.     Not  only 
will  the  ear  be  employed,  but  the  eye;    to  which  latter  sense 
spelling  is  really  addressed.     Instead  of  one,  two  of  the  organs 
of  sense  will  be  engaged,  of  which,  that  of  sight  is  always  more 
conducive  to  distinct  and  lasting  impressions  on  the  mind." 
This    is   in   substance   the   modern   method   of  teaching  spelling! 
Again  in  1853,  in  order  to  improve  the  penmanship,  the  committee 
suggested  as  "one  way  of  meeting  the  difficulty"  that  a  "profes- 
sional teacher  of  penmanship"  be  connected  with  the  department. 
In  the  same  report  was  the  suggestion  that  drawing  lessons  should 
be  given  in  the  high  school  and  upper  grammar  grades  by  a  special 
teacher.     Thus  was  foreshadowed  our  present  supervised  system! 
But  what  must  have  seemed  to  their  fellow  citizens  a  really 
revolutionary  idea  was  promulgated  by  the  committee  in  that 
famous  report  of  1840,  to  which  reference  has  been  made  before, — a 
report  which  does  credit  alike  to  the  critical  judgment  and  the 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS  49 

constructive  intelligence  of  the  five  men  who  adopted  it.    To  quote 
at  length : — 

*  *  the  committee  would  respectfully  suggest  the 
propriety  of  an  appropriation  for  the  purchase  of  apparatus  to 
be  used  by  the  Superintendent  in  familiar  lectures  on  the  sub- 
jects of  Chemistry,  Natural  Philosophy,  and  Astronomy.  Many 
of  the  sublime  doctrines  of  these  sciences  might  thus  be  stated 
and  illustrated,  and  brought  down  to  the  comprehension  of  the 
older  classes  of  pupils  in  our  schools.  It  would  awaken  their 
curiosity,  furnish  topics  for  contemplation,  and  impart  an 
impulse  that  might  result,  on  the  part  of  many  of  them,  in  high 
attainments  in  these  branches  of  knowledge.  If  'fragrance 
after  showers  is  sweet '  to  them,  might  it  not  be  equally  grateful 
to  know  by  the  aid  of  some  optical  apparatus,  how  the  bow  is 
formed,  which  'spans  the  cloud  in  the  day  of  rain;'  and  how 
the  red  colorings  and  purple  tinges  of  evening  are  penciled  on 
the  clouds  and  on  the  sky,  as  the  sun  sinks  away  from  their 
sight?  Would  not  a  good  telescope  and  microscope  reveal 
wonders  even  to  their  young  gaze,  and  give  them  a  more  im- 
pressive sense  of  the  greatness  and  glory  of  that  God,  in  whose 
universe  they  live,  and  to  whose  judgment  bar  they  are  account- 
able?" 

Sciences  brought  down  to  the  comprehension  of  the  older  classes  of 
pupils  to  impart  an  impulse! 

Here  were  men, — compelled  under  the  law  to  visit  the  schools 
once  a  month, — who  were  not  satisfied  with  the  oral  spelling  bees, 
the  memory  grinds,  the  "senseless"  reading,  the  heart-breaking 
machine-making  methods,  the  narrow  course  which  failed  to  open 
up  the  mind  of  the  child  or  to  make  strong  and  lasting  impressions 
and  plant  ideals  at  the  root  of  character.  Here  were  men  of  vision ; 
men  who  saw  clearly  the  broader  and  deeper  mission  of  the  public 
school;  men  who  reached  bravely  for  the  soul  in  education.  It  is 
the  seriousness,  intelligence,  and  brave  ambitious  spirit  of  men  like 
these  in  control  of  the  educational  interests  of  many  communities, 
that,  in  a  half  century,  have  brought  their  vision  to  a  realization 
in  systems  of  schools  of  which  richness  of  material  in  the  course  of 
study  and  excellence  of  supervision  are  the  corner  stones.  From 


50  THE       SPRINGFIELD       TE^STS 

the  earliest  days,  under  the  watchfulness  of  committees  as  intelligent 
as  any  in  the  country,  this  community  of  Springfield,  almost  ideal 
in  its  location  and  citizenship,  has  pushed  steadily  onward  in 
developing  its  public  schools, — molding,  perfecting,  broadening ; — a 
wise  experimenter,  an  intelligent  pioneer.  Today,  as  in  the  time 
of  Horace  Mann,  its  schools  stand  for  what  educators  believe  to  be 
the  best  ideas  in  education,  and  for  this  reason  it  offers  as  fitting  an 
opportunity  as  any  place  in  the  country  to  bring  to  a  decisive 
test  the  new  and  old  ideas  in  public  school  work. 

Whatever  may  be  said  regarding  the  schools  of  half  a 
century  ago,  either  in  praise  or  criticism, — and  much  can  be  said 
in  praise, — these  old  test  papers  present  indisputable  evidence  of 
their  inferiority  as  compared  with  the  schools  of  the  present  day. 
Those  who  are  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  modern  school  readily 
see  why  the  work  in  the  common  branches  is  better  today  than  it 
could  have  been  years  ago.  Superior  text-books,  maps  and  general 
equipment; — higher  educational  qualifications  and  better  profes- 
sional training  for  teachers; — compulsory  supervision;  improve- 
ments in  methods  of  instruction  in  spelling,  arithmetic,  geography 
and  reading ;  smaller  classes,  although  much  is  yet  to  be  desired  in 
this  particular; — all  tend  to  bring  about  better  results.  The 
benefits  of  a  richer  reading  course  alone  can  hardly  be  estimated. 
In  1846,  excluding  the  text-books  in  geography,  history  and  physi- 
ology, eleven  different  books  were  read  below  the  high  school,— 
about  one  a  year;  children  now  read  73,  or  about  eight  each  year, 
in  taking  the  same  course.  The  taste  for  reading  is  today  stimulated 
and  directed  and  from  the  amount  and  quality  of  the  reading  matter, 
the  child  acquires  a  larger  vocabulary  and  learns  to  spell  many  new 
words  unconsciously.  Children  are  not  only  receiving  much  solider 
and  more  sensible  and  skilful  instruction  in  the  three  R's,  but  their 
homes  are  being  elevated,  their  lives  broadened  and  enriched,  and 
their  usefulness  and  capacity  for  enjoyment  increased  as  never 
before.  The  old  school,  in  its  meagemess,  starved  the  imagination 
and  emotions,  and  its  harsh  discipline  suppressed  and  warped 


THE        SPRINGFIELD        TESTS  51 

activities.  Even  a  superficial  reading  of  the  old  records  and  reports 
prove  that  the  intelligent  people  of  those  times  were  cognizant  of 
its  defects  and  struggled  to  remedy  them.  The  leading  educators 
of  today  are  probably  fully  as  cognizant  of  the  defects  of  the  modern 
school  and  are  struggling  with  equal  sincerity  and  earnestness  for 
better  things. 


THE  three  R's, — reading,  'riting,  and  'rithmetic, — are  not 
being  neglected  in  the  present  day  schools,  but  the  public 
school  system  has  passed  irrevocably  beyond  the  stage 
where  its  only  office  was  to  impart  a  little  skill  in  these  branches. 
It  has  entered  upon  its  broader  work  of  preparing  the  youth  of 
America  to  live  intelligently,  to  understand  and  appreciate  the 
inheritance  of  freedom  which  is  theirs,  and  to  grasp  the  great  truth 
that  mankind  are  one.  The  changes  and  improvements  in  the 
course  of  study  necessitated  by  this  enlarging  of  the  function  of 
the  school  will  continue ;  and,  as  there  will  always  be  conservatives 
in  the  world, — the  "Three  R's,"  in  a  slightly  modified  form  in 
different  generations,  will  ever  be  a  live  question.  In  politics, 
religion,  science, — in  every  branch  of  human  progress,  the  old 
established  ideas  will  continue  to  have  hosts  of  defenders.  Every 
new  idea  in  public  education  must  prove  its  right  to  public  support. 
The  survival  of  the  fittest  is  a  law  here  as  elsewhere.  An  idea  which 
is  only  ephemeral  in  character, — which  lacks  the  resistant  power 
to  withstand  public  investigation  and  criticism, — has  no  place  in 
practical,  virile  education.  But  ideas  which  have  their  roots  in 
the  best  thought  of  half  a  century, — like  many  of  our  so-called 
fads, — are  entitled  to  something  more  than  thoughtless  criticism. 
However  highly  may  be  regarded  the  schools  of  our  childhood, 
intelligent  people  will  never  allow  childhood's  exaggerated  and 
distorted  notions  to  exercise  too  great  an  influence  in  shaping  their 
opinions  as  adults.  Lowell  may  not  have  had  the  three  R's  in 
mind  when  he  wrote  the  following,  but  nothing  could  be  more 
applicable  than  his  much-quoted  lines  :— 

' '  Therefore  think  not  the  Past  is  wise  alone 
For  yesterday  knows  nothing  of  the  Best." 


THE  F.  A.  BASSETTE  CO.,  Printers 
Springfield,  Mass. 


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